


Give Me A Raincheck

by Synthtraitor



Series: The Saints Come Marching In [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Multi, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 11:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13410450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synthtraitor/pseuds/Synthtraitor
Summary: “When it rains, it pours.” Your dad says, with the shadows of raindrops dripping down his face like tears.“Life never goes your way, and it can smell weakness.” He says, driving away from a bundle of tightly bound nerves, from a divorce that’d been boiling on an electric stove for years and years andyears.“Jesus Chri – When it rains, it fucking pours.” Ryan says, leaning forward in the driver’s seat and looking through the windshield at the sky, with the shadows of raindrops dripping down his face like tears.“Can’t we catch a break? Some time this year? I'm getting sick of all the thundering.” He says, tapping his thumbs irritably on the steering wheel at a red light.





	Give Me A Raincheck

“When it rains, it pours.” Your dad says, with the shadows of raindrops dripping down his face like tears.

“Life never goes your way, and it can smell weakness.” He says, driving away from a bundle of tightly bound nerves, from a divorce that’d been boiling on an electric stove for years and years and _years_ ; and you’re in the passenger seat, keenly aware of where you exist and how much space you take up rounded to the nearest decimal place in the world – in the car; in his life – under the overcast sky, low-hanging clouds that form and storm and _deliver_ , weighed down by the rain, soggy and soaked grey, weighed down by the tears that are shed, by the veteran on the side of the road with an empty shirtsleeve that sways with the breeze because – because he’s out there and you’re not.

It doesn’t apply to you, but it does.

It doesn’t affect you, but it does.

You watch him through the window as the cars begin to speed up – as the stop light turns bright green – and he watches you back, warm rain rolling off his shoulders, down the window and blurring him into the oblivion that exists and doesn’t outside the car.

It’s not safety, but it’s not _not_ either.

 

“Can I ask you something purely out of friendly curiosity?” Geoff asks, the right side of his face illuminated softly by Los Santos as he turns to look at you. He’s got a piercing in his right ear, matching yours, matching the rest of the crew’s, it gleams in the light, shines the same way his eyes and the rings on his fingers do, as he holds up a bottle of vodka for you to take, and you comply.

 

Cheap – the vodka’s cheap – you swallow it and click your tongue, lick around your teeth, then grunt a ‘sure’ in Geoff’s direction. The aftertaste settles into your mouth, rancid, and your throat sings with the inflammation the alcohol causes.

“Where…” Geoff hums in thought, “Where are you from – _really_?”

You pass him back the bottle and settle your hands in your lap. “I was born in Reno.” You say, then the quiet settles.

 

“That doesn’t…” Geoff pins you with a look, eyes lidded as he stares down at you, “You know what I meant.”

 

You suck in a breath.

 

“Can I ask you something purely out of friendly curiosity?”

You don’t answer.

“Where are you from – _really_?” Geoff asks.

 

Where are you from – _really_?

 

A house between others, decrepit, bright blue, leant to the side with rusted nails sticking up out of the wood of the porch. Hands swooping down to lift you up, a steady – dry heat and cigarette smoke – a smell that clings to everything, paints the walls and curtains grey and gritty, fills your lungs and makes you choke and your eyes water and your mind sure that one day – _one day_ , your lungs will be black and grey and there’s no escaping it.

You remember chalk on the sidewalk, static-ey television and a circular card table dragged out of a junk lot with punched casino cards thrown across the surface, soft and frayed with use.

You called your grandma Mimi and she smoked in breakfast restaurants, wore fake pearls and hit the slots at the Gas-O twice a week.

Your uncle was named Oscar, watched Sunday golf instead of attending the Sunday service and carried you up high on his broad shoulders whenever he took you into the auto-garage with him, proud as can be that you’re such a smart little math whizz.

Your mother painted her nails blue, and had a deep voice. She’d tap the countertop and hum along to the radio as you sat out on the front porch steps, listening to her through the cracks in the window frame as your popsicle dripped through your fingers.

Your father had soft eyes and crow’s feet that bunched up easy and often. He didn’t yell, wasn’t very loud to begin with, but he got mean, felt cornered and betrayed and got real clever and cut real deep; but that’s implying that his faults are to be blamed for what happened, which is the farthest thing from the truth imaginable.

 

Your mother screamed and cried, your uncle shoved fists through the walls and hollered, something about cheaters and _real_ fathers and bastard children and being done with all the lies and so you stumbled after your dad down the porch steps and into the mud because if there were sides that were to be chosen, you knew where your loyalties lied.

 

“Everyone… They’re all out there for _themselves_.” Your dad says, eyes focused on the darkening world, on the shadows that grow taller and the tree roots that spread farther, choke out life. “It’s all they know – It’s all anyone knows, how to be selfish, how to be human – you can’t ever expect anything else.”

He takes a moment to breath, his chest rising --- then falling under his khaki jacket and you can’t bring yourself to look away from his grey face, unsaturated and slack, his eyelids heavy and the corners of his mouth tucked solemnly downwards.

Lightning strikes and you hold your breath as the harsh light rushes across his face.

“It’s only ever gonna be just me, and just you.” He continues, rough hands on the steering wheel, “Just us, nobody else because you can’t _trust_ anyone else, and when I’m gone, you’ll be alone and you’ll have to be better, know what you need, what you want because if you don’t, you get sidetracked. You settle and convince yourself that this… _This_ could be enough even though you know – _you know_ – it’s not and you… You end up like me, which is something I won’t ever see happen, you hear me?”

 

“Can I ask you something purely out of friendly curiosity?” Geoff asks, the right side of his face illuminated softly by Los Santos – he’s got an earring in his right ear, it’s gold and shiny and it matches yours and Jack’s and Ray’s and the rest of the crew because he loves you – he loves you – he loves you -

 

“When it rains, it pours.” Your dad says, with the shadows of raindrops dripping down his face like tears.

 

You fiddle with the Velcro on your bullet proof vest, not unpeeling it, just running your thumb endlessly over the rougher side of a strap that’s too long, that pokes your jaw if you turn your head a certain way. You’re behind the boat’s wheel, leant back all casual-like with a wayward key sitting unturned in the ignition; and Gavin’s twisted around backwards in the passenger seat, night-vision goggles held up to his face as he scans the empty docks through the darkness, sighing periodically the way he does when he’s trying to be subtle about getting you to do something for him, all damsel-in-distress like – all domestic and normal-like.

You know the routine.

You know he wants you to start a conversation with him because he’s bored and wants answers because he always wants answers but you don’t currently find it in you to humor him. The fabric of your brain is stretched too thin and it’s non-stretch to begin with and you’ve got a queue of items to mull over in the manufactured silence and none of them are meant to be uttered out loud.

You just have to give it time.

Time heals all wounds, doesn’t it? – You just need time.

“(Y/N), why is it you never _really_ talk about your past?” Gavin asks nevertheless, out of the blue, out _on_ the great blue, even though you gave him all the proper warning signs.

The boat rocks in a back and forth motion under the soles of your shoes and the waves slosh sloppily against the dock. It’s high tide, and you can smell rain coming in from somewhere offshore, you could smell it hours ago and Geoff still gave the all-clear for a daring aquatic escape because the fakes are nothing if not dramatic.

 

“(Y/N), why is it you never _really_ talk about your past?”

 

When you don’t respond immediately, he sighs – sighs – sighs, breathes out a breath so earth-shattering – so disappointed – so _distraught_ – so _fucking_ dramatic that you automatically respond in an equally immature manner, crossing your arms and dragging your legs towards you so your knees are bent at a ninety-degree angle and you’re grounded to the boat. “I don’t know what you mean.” You say, slumped over and glowering over the windshield.

“We would never judge you for it, you know. For _any_ of it.” He says, like it means something, like he thinks he hit home, broached the _actual_ , real life problem you’re facing. Like the way he lowers his goggles ever so slightly and gives you the most sincere look you’ve ever seen means that he _knows_ , which he doesn’t. He fucking doesn’t.    

“What would you even want to know anyways?” You say, not particularly wanting him to answer.

Gavin hums, scratches his beard, then asks, “Where did you learn to be such a mousy pickpocket?”

 

When you see people smile, when their mouth stretches upwards and their eyes squint and you catch sight of some teeth and some gum and some of the sunshine that everyone holds within them, it’s… It’s… Indescribable.

The entire world refocuses, you slide on round rose-tinted glasses and you can feel the warmth of the sun straight to your bones. You feel tears gather behind your eyes, your chest expands and expands with a single breath and the weight on your shoulders melts away at the drop of a hat like liquid mercury.

When you see people smile, when they _really_ smile for all the right reasons, for the good, wonderful, yellow reasons, you can’t help but smile, too. A grin’s pulled out of you, the same way a doctor knocking on your knee makes your leg kick.

This is relevant because your dad has the most wonderful smile. He’s got sun-beaten skin and years and years of life that give him wrinkles that make his smile continue on and on and on until forever and then some and in turn, he’s got laugh lines carved into his entire existence because that’s the sort of person he is.

A low point, doesn’t define him.

A low point, doesn’t define you.

A low point, doesn’t define anybody.

 

Where are you from – _really_?

 

San Francisco. It’s cold in San Francisco, the kind of cold that bites at your nose and eats away at your knees. The kind of cold that’s consuming, inescapable, unexplainable. The wind cuts right through your worn jacket, the sleeves are two inches too short and the fabric is pulled tight under your armpits, doesn’t allow for much movement, but you don’t complain – not a word as you wiggle your toes and watch the bright blue of your sock show through a hole in the toe of your sneakers.

“Alright, alright.” Your head pops up as your dad appears on the street suddenly, taking a seat on the half-wall next to you and throwing an arm around your shoulders. “You okay? I got us pizza and hot chocolate, which is a weird combination, I know, but I think that in this situation, it might just work.” He gives you a lopsided smile, face folding into a happy grin that you return. “It’ll warm you up I promise.” He says, and it does.

“What are we doing here?” You eventually ask, hands molded around your paper cup so that the warmth it offers seeps into your cold fingers.

It’s a busy street, people swarm across the striped crossings in droves, and the ocean surges at your back, the air saturated and heavy with sea salt. Your dad’s eyes flit across the crowd, searching, lingering on suits and ties and snakeskin purses, gilded with gold, as his hair curls – curls – curls with the humidity, then turns back to you: “Today we’re learning how and why it’s alright to steal things.”

 

“You can’t trust people.” Your dad says, lightning flashing, and then a roll of thunder making him blink, blink away the raindrop tears that don’t stop falling.

“You can’t trust people, can’t rely on them, can’t believe them, you have to remember, always, that you are you, and that you are alone. Always.”

 

The rain falls, you feel the roar of the engine in your chest and nothing else, thrumming, humming and your dad says, voice becoming more and more hysterical - _distant_ : “People only take, and take, and take and you’re just a person, after all, so you have to, too.”

 

The rain falls – falls – falls in an endless torrent and your dad says: “Nobody is ever gonna give a shit about you.”

 

The endless road fills with water, the desert is knee deep in a flood and the bone-dry dirt can’t soak it all up fast enough. Your dad’s mint green wagon cuts through the icy water with ease, like it doesn’t even exist, and the clouds above curl and knit together into a grey cotton blanket spelling out your doom and your dad says: “You’re never given what you’re owed, nobody’s ever given what they’re owed, so you have to fight for it. -

“I’m sorry.” Your dad says, left hand on the wheel, right, resting on the middle console, reaching out for yours as the two of you drive away from San Francisco. A massive sunset sets the sky ablaze, reds and oranges that make his hair glow and set a glint in your eyes, “All my credit cards have been cancelled, and your mom just moved all the money out of our joint bank account.”

“It’s okay.” You console, “I don’t mind.”

“It’s not your fault.” You console.

 

“You didn’t do any of this.” You console.

 

Sincerely.

 

Existence is soft in the car, hazy red as the sky – the sky – the sky continues to burn, to bathe your dad’s face in color and you’re grateful that he’s alive again, living again, breathing again with both his lungs – no smoke to soil this moment - as you drive away from San Francisco. “No… It’s just… I… This was bound to happen.” He says, “Money doesn’t last forever, doesn’t grow on fucking trees, and you would have started doing… _T_ _his_ , eventually, but… I wish… I just wish that you didn’t.”

You reach over and hold his hand, and he sighs, drops his shoulders and blinks – blinks – blinks – holds his eyes shut for a few seconds, eyebrows lifting and face screwing up, wrinkles deepening – but he doesn’t turn his face towards you and he keeps the car steady on the road and sometimes, that’s all a person can really do.

It’s not safety, but it’s not _not_ either.

It’s not okay, but it’s not _not_ either.

You don’t blame him.

You’ve never blamed him.

How could anyone ever blame him?

 

Dad’s Rules for Staying Alive and Avoiding the consequences of your actions:

  1.     Always be aware of your surroundings. Look for unexpected opportunities, look for unexpected trouble. Both exist.
  2.     Misdirection is the most important tool of any good pickpocket. Be loud with distractions, subtle with the actual theft. Prey on people’s sympathy, anger, or lack of situational awareness. Be extra cautious in crowds.
  3.     Gas is always your first priority. Mobility is freedom, freedom is happiness, and happiness is the only reason you will ever have for staying alive.
  4.     Shower whenever you get the chance, and clean the goddamn car. Everything’s easier when you’re clean.
  5.     Everyone needs human contact. Talk to people, laugh and smile and be kind, but never forget that your wants and your needs are more important than all of humanity combined. Everyone lives for themselves.
  6.     Never forget to indulge yourself. Take the scenic route, stop at the tourist traps and trespass on government property. Your happiness is your life.
  7.     Eat your vegetables.
  8.     Stay hidden, and stay unknown. Move from state to state, don’t steal anything traceable (no matter how cool the car looks and how easy you find breaking into cars to be) and if you use somebody else’s credit card, don’t stick around to suffer to consequences. Don’t make a fuss and nobody will come looking.
  9.     You’re unassuming. That’s good. Use it.



 

                             The sky reaches up and up above you, stretching on its toes until it’s fingertips brush the stars and then it keeps going, a bright powder blue, not a cloud in sight. You suck in two lungs full of air, trying to stir the smog and second-hand cigarette smoke that you imagine to be sitting at the bottoms of your lungs, then blow it out, letting your chest fall and your body relax into the warm rock below you.

“What are you doing?” Your eyes flutter open as Mercedes leans over you, her hair heavy with freshwater and her face clean. She’s wearing a goofy smile and her voice lilts with a teasing tone.

“I _was_ relaxing.” You say, smiling, popping up into a sitting position so you can look at her properly, drink the air in and let the sun soak through your skin without much worry or thought, “Though you sort of ruined it.”

Mercedes flips her long hair over her shoulder, sending water flying your way, then folds her legs criss-cross and sits facing you, “s’not my fault you’re boring as shit.”

“I’m not boring! You’re just hungry!”

The chill from the river fades, drips down your body and evaporates into the dry air, and you’re caught in the moment, in a moment that’s happened – happened – happened time and time and time again and you revel in it. The happiness is recycled, it’s a rehash and presented new but people only ever have so much to give and nothing will ever take what this moment means away from you.

 

“Everyone… They’re all out there for _themselves_.” Your dad says, eyes focused on the darkening world, on the shadows that grow taller and the tree roots that spread farther, choke out the surrounding life.

 

“Can I ask you something purely out of friendly curiosity?” Geoff asks, the right side of his face illuminated softly by Los Santos as he turns his face to look at you. He’s got a piercing in his right ear, matching yours, matching the rest of the crew’s, it gleams in the light, shines the same way his eyes and the rings on his fingers do, as he holds up a bottle of vodka for you to take, and you comply.

 

He hands off the bottle easily.

 

The Vodka’s cheap – cheap – cheap.

 

Nevada City, you’re fifteen and you’ve got all of the rest of the rest of your life stretching out on a dirt road in front of you. Your dad drives up the winding roads, bracketed by trees on the verge of overtaking the asphalt. He pulls off onto a gravel road, the car bounces around the potholes and plot holes and then you drive under a sign that says: ‘Sunshine Spring Trailer Park’ in faded yellow lettering.

He turns to you, older, crows feet carved even deeper and he says – he says –

“This is it.” He says, “Your great aunt kicked the bucket and I guess I was always her favorite nephew. “

“She left us her whole fucking house.”

“Can you believe that?”

“I mean, it’s not much, but still, a single-wide –“

 

“Where…” Geoff hums in though, “Where are you from – _really_?”

 

Nevada City, you’re fifteen and you’re re-enrolled in school, nobody asked many questions when you appeared and Mercedes just… Walks up to you. Empty halls, off-white walls because nobody washes their fucking hands, an orange stripe running along the tops of the lockers in the sake of school spirit and she walks up to you and asks you know where you’re going because she’s new here too and lost here too and you figure it out together. She says she’s from Puebla, and you tell her that you’re from way East, like, Oklahoma because it’s a good enough lie for you to spin.

 

The rain falls, you feel the roar of the engine in your chest and nothing else, thrumming, humming and your dad says, voice becoming more and more hysterical: “People only take, and take, and take and you’re just a person, after all, so you have to, too.”

 

Nevada City, you’re seventeen and you’re still fucking here because your dad likes coming home to the same place every day after his five-to-nine construction job and you like the dinners he cooks from cans.

 

“Where… Where do you think you’ll end up?” Mercedes asks from the driver seat of her silver sedan. Her hair spills across the headrest and shoulders of the reclined seat, and she rests her feet against the steering wheel carelessly, staring up at the fuzzy ceiling.

You hum thoughtfully, more to let her know you heard her than to answer, then fall back into the silence. The question rouses you from your faded almost-sleep, catches you lazily off guard and you feel no urgency to answer, so you take the time to breathe, soaking in the dead silence and hazy heat; content to remain in the isolation and peace of the small car.

From somewhere far away – the highway, probably – an engine revs, the sound echo-ey against the mountains. The creek bubbles softly, only audible through the open windows, and the scraggly pine trees murmur in the breeze, their roots firmly stuck in the rocky and uneven soil.

“I don’t know.” You sigh, soft as the breeze, melting into your surroundings, eyelids sliding shut as you focus on the dip of a moment you’ve painstakingly carved out for yourself with nothing but extra plastic silverware left in the glove box after takeout.

“You’ve never thought about it?” Mercedes’ voice cuts right through it.

“No… _No_ …” You’re slow to reply, “I have. I’ve thought about it… A lot, actually. It’s just… Why spoil the story? You know?”

You let your words sink their teeth into the quiet, and then Mercedes drops her head to the side and snorts. “You’re so damn dramatic,” she says, and you laugh along with her because it’s sort of true.

 

“I have big pans.” Mercedes laughs and gestures widely with her arms, almost smacking you in the face. She’s balancing on the curb, and you’re walking along beside her on the road, comfortably close to the side.

“Oh, really?”

“Oh, yea.” She beams at you, the sunshine trapped in her smile and the stars in her eyes – she’s got one of those great smiles, too – she’s got dark skin, like her grandparents were natives to Mexico rather than European and it makes her teeth stand out when she flashes them, which is so beautiful because she’s beautiful, most everyone is, but her especially - “I’m gonna be an actress. You know, the whooole Hollywood tour – the shebang – _all_ of it.”

“Even the drug scandals?” You ask with a smirk, eyeing her up and down like you’re a judge on American Idol.

“Even the drug scandals.” She says, and you believe her.

 

The prologue took place in Vegas, in some second rate casino and the details are thankfully vague. You only ever heard about it from your mom. It’s her narration that lets you picture the vaulted ceilings and cigarette stained curtains, the flashing slot machines and what she describes as the brilliant smile your dad used to have, all white toothed and bright eyed, bushy-tailed and _happy,_ and you don’t think he ever really lost that smile, she just stopped being able to draw it out of him.

She tells you that you weren’t the mistake, that your dad was, but it’s too easy for you to read between the lines and lies and you don’t take issue with that.

You later learn that when they crowded into your mom’s hotel room, the window cracked and the curtains drawn – the hotel pool six floors below – that when your dad shook his jacket off by the door, his pockets were filled with watches and coin purses and rings and leather wallets and that none of them belonged to him.

That’s why she loved him at first, you think, and that’s why you love him now.

 

The car fills with water, chilling your bones and your clothes are soaked and heavy and your dad says, both hands on the wheel, a khaki jacket on, he says: “Don’t _ever_ let anyone rule you.” He says, with the shadows of raindrops falling from his eyes like they’re tears.

 

A house between others, decrepit, bright blue, it’s raining outside, it thunders on and off for a few short weeks during the summer, and a flood warning’s been issued for most of the surrounding area. Your mom sits next to you on the couch, you both watch the rain through the open window, and you both listen to a world hushed by the stormy weather.

“You’re just like me.” She says, “You’ve got a pretty face, but you’re never going nowhere.” She says, “you’re not good enough to.”

There’s lightening a couple streets over.

 

It’s raining, it’s pouring, it’s thundering and lightning flashes across the sky leaving your terrified face pale in the light and your dad says: “You take and you take and you take, whatever you want, from whoever you want, because there are no ‘better’ people in this world, just regular ones and they all do bad and they all do good and you’re just one of them.”

“Steal and lie and cheat because you’re smart – because you’re capable – and because you deserve whatever it is you can get. Everyone deserves whatever it is they can get – Everyone’s only given what they can handle and… And you and me,” He pauses for a breath, “You and me can handle it.”

 

You stumbled after your dad down the porch steps and into the mud because if there were sides that were to be chosen, you knew where your loyalties lied.

 

“(Y/N), why is it you never _really_ talk about your past?” Gavin asks nevertheless, out of the blue, out _on_ the great blue, even though you gave him all the proper warning signs.

The boat rocks in a back and forth motion under the soles of your shoes and the waves slosh sloppily against the dock. It’s high tide, and you can smell rain coming in from somewhere offshore, you could smell it hours ago and Geoff still gave the all-clear for a daring aquatic escape because the fakes are nothing if not dramatic and you fit right in.

“(Y/N), why is it you never _really_ talk about your past?”

When you don’t respond immediately, he sighs – sighs – sighs, breathes out a breath so earth-shattering – so disappointed – so _distraught_ – so _fucking_ dramatic that you automatically respond in an equally immature manner, crossing your arms and dragging your legs towards you so your knees are bent at a ninety-degree angle and you’re grounded to the boat. “What would you even want to know anyways?” You say, not particularly wanting him to answer.

Gavin hums, scratches his beard, then asks, “Where did you learn to be such a mousy pickpocket?”

 

You’ve never been a stranger to theft. It’s a close family friend and for as far as you can see, in your world, it’s just a part of life.

Your mother was a fan of shoplifting. She didn’t give a rats ass that you didn’t have fresh vegetables in the fridge, but she liked fancy clothes and high-end soaps, said they were necessities for her, and they were. Necessities. For _her_. She was always careful to give off the impression that she belonged somewhere else – Somewhere greater, richer and with a higher population density.

She was better than your dad, better than you, and her place was among the Hollywood stars, pencil heels on marble as she clicks her way into the theater with a man more handsome than your dad on her arm and diamonds in her ear and a couple of Grammys in her repertoire and no children.

Instead, Vegas rotted her voice and teeth and Reno is the rock to her rock-bottom.

 

Your father had a stint on the streets as a teenager and was taken under the wing of a homeless man named Paul, who gave him a baseball cap and lice, and he just never dropped the habit of pickpocketing – went as far as to install it in you because he thinks it’s a good thing. He points at all the happy consequences of him impulsively lifting some stranger’s wallet and that’s enough for you, it’s always been enough for you – you’ve never asked him to give you a reason, not once.

Later, when you’re older and removed and sitting on the roof of an apartment building owned by a gang in which you are a member of, drinking lukewarm water out of a throw-away bottle and eating dried mangoes and teriyaki chicken jerky as the sun sets, you realize that your dad couldn’t take a single breath without guilt oozing out of him, and it doesn’t make you think any less of him – Not once, it never has – it reminds you of someone you know currently.

Besides, anyways, nevertheless; He has to pay for gas somehow.

 

In the summer after San Francisco, your dad’s standing by the gas pump filling the tank, with his baseball cap on his head, squashing his hair down and a t-shirt sticking to his back. The Santa Ana’s are suffocating, the sun relentless, and if you stand in a single spot for too long, you’re sure the rubber of your flip flops will melt straight into the pavement below you.

You look back at your dad, and tell him you’re going to the bathroom. He nods along, waves you off and tells you not to take candy from strangers, like you’d meet them in the bathroom and socialize as you fight with a broken crank for paper towels, and you tell him that it’s okay because you won’t.

You come out of the gas station with a snow globe in your pocket and you don’t ever remember making the decision to take it. Your fingers twitched and now you’re setting it on the dash and staring as the snow settles around a tiny ceramic meteor crater.

Your dad starts the car, looks at the snow globe, looks at you, the snow globe, you, laughs, then drives away.

 

“You’re going to prom, right?” Mercedes asks one afternoon, looking up from her homework and swinging on her hammock nervously. You’re sitting at the patio table a couple feet away from her, knees bobbing up and down to the music and you turn to look at her.

“Why?” You ask.

“Well, _I’m_ going.” She avoids answering.  

 

On the shelf above your bed you have a memorial to all the trinkets some poor stranger lost to your pocket and you look at it everyday and don’t feel an ounce of guilt.

 

Nevada City, five pm, it’s raining.

Your dad breathes easy when it rains. Something about it being poetic, how it washes away the old and brings in new life, new growth, new hope and you now share that sentiment because you don’t know what else to do but model your life after his.

He stands outside as it thunders, arms raised towards the sky, eyes closed as he breathes and breathes and breathes for ever – ever – ever and you let him be because there are some moments you let people keep to themselves. Some moments are meant for sharing, are all the more special because of it, and some aren’t.

He stands outside, raindrops falling off his face like tears, and you let him be alone.  

 

“You should… You should go to prom with me.” Mercedes says after she’s done placing her order at the Sonic drive thru.

 

Your mom’s got a voice like butter, alto, and she can swing so low without it cracking that it rocks crowds back and when you were younger, you’d take every chance you could get to listen to her use it. It was like she was breathing magic, twisting words around her tongue and everything was okay, so long as she sang, rocked you to sleep on rare occasion.

Sometimes, when she was in a mood, she’d sit with you balancing on her lap and she’d tell you that her voice used to be so much prettier when she was younger as she sung and swayed on the couch with your hands in her own as you smile and laugh and sing with her when you know the words because singing is one of those things that’s always better when shared.

 

Mercedes laughs when you kiss, says she can’t help it, the way her thick upper lip is pulled into a wry grin as she smiles and smiles and smiles and shares air with you.

Michael’s the same way.

He huffs and giggles – doesn’t because he doesn’t fucking giggle don’t say he giggles he doesn’t – he giggles and can’t find any purchase on your clothes or hips and you hold on to his shoulders and press kisses to the side of his mouth as the two of you stumble up the stairs to the roof, up the long, walled in hallway that trails up and up until you’re rewarded with a blown up blue sky with ocean clouds and a sun that melts through skin.

He’s drunk, in the middle of the day, maybe high too, laughing about how he fucking loves you, how he loves all of you so goddamm much; and you’re drunk, but more off his words and life and how glad you are to have it than anything else and it’s fine – it’s fine because you’re all adults and you love each other and you both just really want eat a couple rocket popsicles each and he looks so fucking beautiful with freckles on the tops of his cheeks and brown eyes full of life and there’s not a lot you can do when confronted with this sort of stuff because you’re only human, everyone’s got weaknesses and those just happen to be yours.

Michael trips, you fall on your ass and his face barely leaves yours before it’s back again and it’s good. Really good.

You eventually make it to the door and you open that door and you’re met with warm rain that Michael insists won’t stop you from enjoying the sky and eating popsicles together like a couple of chummy kids on a hot summer day outside a Seven-Eleven.

You look over at Michael and realize that he’s only ever existed here for you, on a rooftop in Los Santos with firecracker eyes and a fake-angry voice that betrays the wealth of happiness he protects within.

Michael looks over at you and you realize that you’ve only ever existed here for him, with wandering hands that return with shit that doesn’t belong to you and a shoddy relationship with rain that to his knowledge, has no explanation.

It’s okay, though, it’s the only way anybody can really exist in other people’s lives. Everyone’s got their spheres and sometimes they intersect like a web of Venn diagrams nobody has a map for and that’s all life is, people influencing others and people reacting to those influences and Ryan calls it cause and effect and you agree with him, because that’s all it is, all it can be, there’s nothing more and yet, there’s everything more because there are so many iterations in which an event can happen that, by human perception, virtually everything’s possible so long as you believe and that’s not the point.

The point is, no matter how and when and where Michael exists, you love him with all of your beating heart.

 

“Where…” Geoff hums in thought, “Where are you from – _really_?”

You pass him back the bottle and settle your hands in your lap.

 

“Where do you think you’ll end up?” Mercedes says from the driver seat of her silver sedan, her hair spilling across the headrest to her seat like it’s spun liquid.

 

Your dad pulls you in front of him, one hand on each of your upper arms, under the harsh light of a gas station in the middle of the desert and night and he says – he says – he says – he locks eyes with you, looks into your eyes with his kind ones with the crows feet and the knowledge and he says, a khaki jacket sitting on his shoulder, his baseball cap on his head: “know what you need, know what you want because if you don’t, you get sidetracked. You settle and convince yourself that things are good the way they are even though you know they’re not and you end up like me, which is something I won’t see happen, you hear me? You’ll be better. For me, you have to be better.”

 

He could never see himself the way you saw him, could never settle for who he was, understand that all you wanted was to _be_ him; be strong enough to stand up for your happiness, to chase it, count one-two-three then go-go-go, to have a smile that sinks through crowds, and clever eyes and clever hands, and a drive to find fulfillment in whatever he chooses.

You want to be the person who pulls someone you love out of the passenger seat and into the desert to slow dance to Cyndi Lauper as the sky considers raining because somebody better than that doesn’t exist – _can’t_ exist.

 

It was raining when your dad died. It beat down on the tin roof of the trailer, two months after prom, after you got home from school and it poured and poured and poured and made the creek thick with mud - as you sat in the back of the ambulance, as a paramedic with bleach blonde hair wrapped a foil blanket around your shoulders and told you that it was a heart attack and for some reason, the rain didn’t fall down your face the way it did your dad’s.

 

It was raining when you left Nevada City, your mind filled with a silent drive to make it as far away from everything as you possibly can, functioning off the numbness that makes you mindless and futureless and destitute. With the windshield wipers on, you sit in the driver’s seat of your dad’s fifth car and you leave without saying goodbye to Mercedes because there are some moments - there are some moments - some moments - some moments - some moments that you don’t share with others and -

 

It rained and rained and rained - poured, didn’t stop, didn’t drown your voice as you screamed, two days later, when you were shot in the head by a fritzed out junkie working behind the counter at a Gas-O in San Jose because you have shit - shit - shit luck and you got sloppy and your glasses shatter and  –

 

It continued to rain when you woke up wrapped up in a tarp in a ditch in the middle of the desert with your car, for some fucking reason – not that you can expect junkies to be reasonable – parked ten feet away with one tire in a muddy ditch, a full tank of gas, and the key sitting prettily on the dash - reborn in the mud and rain and -

 

It was raining when you met Geoff. He was a suit. Suits mean paper money in their pockets and you definitely got a shit ton from his – and a couple credit cards, two of which had different names on them.

It was all luck after that because the suit he was wearing happened to be his very first and after hunting you down like his life depended on it, he found that he sort of liked you, just a bit, even though you were the very definition of a kleptomaniac and a bastard combined.

 

“Jesus Chri – When it rains, it fucking pours.” Ryan says, leaning forward in the driver’s seat and looking through the windshield at the sky, with the shadows of raindrops dripping down his face like tears.

“Can’t we catch a break? Some time this year? I'm getting sick of all the thundering.” He says, tapping his thumbs irritably on the steering wheel at a red light. He’s itching to be removed from the vicinity of the bodies you just handed off to Geoff’s contact, and you’re in the passenger seat and –

the chill from the river fades, drips down your body and evaporates into the dry air, and you’re caught in the moment, in a moment that’s happened – happened – happened time and time and time again and it’s a rehash and presented new but people only ever have so much to give and nothing will ever take what this moment means away from you - under the overcast sky, low-hanging clouds that form and storm and _deliver._

It doesn’t apply to you, but it does.

It doesn’t affect you, but it does.

“Can I ask you something purely out of friendly curiosity?” Geoff asks, the right side of his face illuminated softly by Los Santos as he turns to look at you. He’s got a piercing in his right ear, matching yours, matching the rest of the crew’s, it gleams in the light, shines the same way his eyes and the rings on his fingers do, as he holds up a bottle of vodka for you to take –

There’s cigarette smoke choking your lungs, your Mimi’s driving her fucking car and smoking with the windows rolled all the way up and you’ll carry the smell with you after she drops you off at school, carry the smoke in your lungs and it’ll rot – rot – rot through your soft tissue till everything’s black and  –

“You can’t trust people.” Your dad says, lightning flashing, and then a roll of thunder making him blink, blink away the raindrop tears that don’t stop falling.

“You can’t trust people, can’t rely on them, can’t believe them, you have to remember, always, that you are you, and that you are alone. Always –

Time doesn’t heal wounds, it just fades scars and expecting to be able to skip all the big bits of story, expecting to be able to hand out rainchecks when it comes to difficult situations till the end of the end of the end of time is really fucking delusional on your part.

It’s no way to live, no way to be happy, and to live is to be happy and to be happy is to live and –

 

You suck in a breath, and turn to look at Geoff. Your eyes flicker to his earring, then back to his face and you open your mouth, find it dry, close your mouth, wet your lips and then say, pulling your khaki jacket tighter around your shoulders, curling away from the chill, you say: “My dad had wrinkles at the age of twenty, crows feet and a big, white smile that sunk through people like sunshine and my mom was a desert flower with the voice of an angel and it’s easy to see why they ended up together, and why they broke it off. They never could figure out what it was they really wanted.”

**Author's Note:**

> Got anything to say? Check out my [tumblr](https://thefakesaints.tumblr.com/)


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